The figures that matter most, each traceable to one entry and one named source.
Standing rule: no scores. Color marks whether something is in force, reversed, contested, concluded, or permanent, not good or bad.
Unscored · 97 entries · last change 2026-08-16
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Color is a legal fact, not an opinion. It shows (whether something is still in force, was reversed, or is contested in court), never whether it was good or bad.
Every number links to its source and to how strongly it can be tied to the action (). Click any figure to see the full evidence.
Nothing here is scored, graded, or ranked. When two credible sources disagree, this archive shows both numbers instead of picking one.
Wins are in here too. See or filter the Ledger by .
Nobody is asking you to trust a byline. There isn’t one — the archive is anonymous, on purpose, which is exactly why it has to be checkable without one. See and check one entry against its own source yourself.
Public approval37% approve · 57% disapproveNet approval of roughly −21 is the lowest of either term, below his post-January-6 floor of −19. Independent approval near 34%.Polling averages, early August 2026
Next scheduled testMidterm elections, November 2026Three months out. Independent approval below the level that preceded the 2018 wave; the entire House and a third of the Senate are on the ballot.Election calendar
Figures of record
▲ and ▼ are direction. Color is measured : who paid, who gained, not whether that was right. Click a figure that has an entry. Not every figure here is a cost. Filter to just .
▲$2.8T
added to the national debt so far this term
18 months in; the JEC reported $2.77T year-over-year in April 2026
Net cost
Added since January 2025 — from $36.22T to roughly $39T. Borne by future taxpayers through debt service; sources put the range at $2.2T–$2.8T depending on cut-off.
Gross national debt · Treasury / Federal Reserve
▲54
more federal judges confirmed this term
On top of 234 in the first term
Transfer
9 appellate, 45 district. Ahead of the 2018 confirmation pace but with a far thinner pipeline — 60 nominees submitted against 137 by this date in 2018.
Lifetime judgeships filled this term · Senate confirmation record
▲369K
total jobs added, Jan 2025 – Mar 2026
vs. 1,565,000 in the final 14 months prior
Transfer
Positive but roughly a quarter the pace of the preceding 14 months. Private sector +609K, offset by federal cuts.
Total nonfarm employment · BLS via FactCheck.org
What this archive is made of
97 entries, 203 effect claims, 520 sourced estimates, 230 linked documents. Zero scores, grades, or rankings.
Where every entry stands today
Color here is a legal and operational fact, not an opinion: whether the action is still in force, was reversed or never fulfilled, is contested in court, has concluded, or is irreversible.
Coverage by domain
Bar segments show the standing mix inside each domain. Click any row to open it in the ledger.
The honesty check on the whole archive. If nearly everything claimed Direct, the archive would be overreaching. Amber marks claims where credible sources reach incompatible conclusions.
Direct138
Contributory28
Contextual20
Disputed17
What the evidence is made of
Every estimate in the archive, grouped by the kind of institution that produced it. Advocacy sources are admissible but never appear alone.
Primary document157
Government data79
Party to the action67
Academic / peer-reviewed52
Nonpartisan scorekeeper41
Advocacy — labeled31
Journalistic verification26
Named / interested parties24
Archive reasoning — not a source17
Cross-ideological convergence13
Mixed / other11
Polling aggregate2
The disagreement, charted
These are the numbers people argue with. Each bar is one published estimate at its own value, never averaged into a single figure, because the width of the gap is itself the finding.
10-year deficit effect — OBBBA
$ trillions, 2025–2034
CBO, excl. interest3.4
CBO, incl. interest4.1
CBO, dynamic (thru 2035)4.7
CRFB, if made permanent5.5
10-year deficit effect — TCJA
$ trillions
JCT, dynamic1.07
JCT, conventional1.46
CBO, incl. interest1.9
Project 2025 implementation — competing trackers
% of that tracker’s own agenda list
CPR / GFI — 532 proposals, method published53
Crowdsourced tracker — 317 objectives, no method48
Employment effect — steel & aluminum tariffs
jobs
Steel production jobs added1000
Steel-consuming mfg. jobs lost-75000
2018-04-06 · Immigration & border · initiative
"Zero tolerance" prosecution policy and family separations
16 of 97
Layer 1 — Action
Attorney General memorandum announcing zero-tolerance prosecution, April 6, 2018; separations halted by executive order June 20, 2018.
A DOJ policy of prosecuting all adults crossing the border without authorization resulted in the separation of children from accompanying parents, because children cannot be held in criminal custody.
Ms. L. v. ICE produced a court-ordered reunification process. The HHS Inspector General found the total number separated was larger than initially reported and that no adequate tracking system existed to match children to parents.
Verified as of August 2026
The administration and its critics disagreed on whether separation was an intended deterrent or an incidental result of prosecution. Internal documents cited in the OIG report bear on this; the archive presents both characterizations.
Layer 3 — Measured effects
Thousands of children were separated from parents, and a subset could not be promptly reunified due to inadequate recordkeeping.
At least 5,500 children identified as separated under the policy and its 2017 pilot.
Court filings, Ms. L. v. ICE
Judicial record
DHS lacked a system to identify and track separated families; the number was greater than previously reported.
HHS Office of Inspector General, 2019
Independent government watchdog
The Department stated the policy was a lawful consequence of prosecuting illegal entry, not a separation policy as such.
DOJ / DHS statements, 2018
Executive branch — party to the action
Effect on border crossings.
Southwest border apprehensions fell briefly in mid-2018 and then rose to a decade high in 2019.
CBP Southwest Land Border Encounters data
Government statistical series
No published study establishes a durable deterrent effect attributable to the separation policy.